Apply directly to the forehead

Had a good time on the radio Tuesday. Fun to read a chunk of my novel-in-progress and play a Ben Walker musical setting of my poem "Hospitality." When Jen offered to give out a free copy I'd brought of Surreal Estate, a whole heap of people phoned in. That was refreshing.

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It's been a very social week. A while since I've had one of those.

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Today I went to Eliot's Bookshop on Yonge Street, my favourite used bookstore in the city. Picked up a few things, including One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, by Kenneth Rexroth, a book I've seen around for decades but never picked up. Walmsley's been writing heaps of haikus, scores of them, and reading tons of Chinese and Japanese poetry. So my interest is piqued. The Rexroth poems are calm and straightforward. I'm liking them.

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Waterboard the Bush administration.

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Off to Ottawa in a couple of weeks to appear a the Ottawa Folk Festival and spend a week squirrelled patchily away in a friend's apartment, finishing my novel. Also going to do a couple of mini Poetry Boot Camps while I'm there.

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Just been invited to WordFest in Banff/Calgary this October. I suspect the Globe review had some part in that. I had a good time when I was there a few years back: looking forward to returning.

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Here's a little bit from pages 16-17 of Kenneth Gangemi's incredible novel Olt: "Robert Olt entered the park and paused to look into a baby carriage. He saw a sleeping baby lying on top of a woman lying on top of an old woman lying on top of a half-decayed corpse on top of a brown skeleton on a great number of white skeletons, gradually crumbling into a column of white dust."

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Apply directly to the forehead.

Over and out.